A Digital Life Narrative Installation, Spoken History Archive & Public Performance Space ™

Life narrative is not about literature in the formal sense, thus this is not a magazine nor a journal, so there are no submission guidelines. Any new material will be generated through writing workshops and writing projects.

This is a permanent installation of stories. Human stories. Family stories. Communal stories. Folkloric stories.

Stories Inspire. Stories empower. Stories heal. Stories build, reinforce, and restore community. Stories created and transported via digital media may well, what 60s media critic, Marshall McLuhan, posited of electronic media’s potential, “unify and retribalize the human race.” Indeed – imagine the possibilities of digital stories of Puerto Rico buoyed over oceans, across rugged continents and to remote mountaintops, valleys and islands. The stories herein are a journey. They offer splashes of color and texture, shades of shadow and light as well as fragments of shape and depth to the existing Puerto Rican mosaic – expanding its master narrative. At the same time they offer points of connection and commonalty to the mosaic of a much larger world canvas.

EVB is interactive, maximizing cyberspaces’ “audili-tactile” nature, to engage the reader/viewer in an experience of resonance and connection. Think of it as a digital theater with three main stages; Stage Right, Center Stage, and Stage Left. Imagine it as an experimental/experiential space for innovative forms of personal writing coupled with technology.

As far as content, EVB includes several life narrative genres with a few variations. The more traditional forms include (audio/video/pen) oral history, which has been renamed – spoken history – to better fit its form and function, autotopography (based on ancestral photographs,) memoir and the personal essay. Variations include literary journalism (due to its autobiographical elements), multi-modal memoir (which engages the realm of technology) – and the photo-essay.

Nuyorican Poet, Luis Reyes, who died earlier this year, would not see the difference between the personal story and poetry (Inside the River of Poetry) both are integral part of our existence. Thus the gallery evolved as a sort of synchronistic balance featuring independent art. It includes poetry, fiction, art, film, photography and music. There is no submission process – the gallery operates on requests and invitations. If an artist/writer/musician/poet feels his/her work is ready to publish and as long as there are volunteers to process the materials, the stage is public space.

The authors are mainly of Puerto Rican descent, from both on and off the island. Other authors are members of the Puerto Rican community via immigration, migration, marriage, exile and/or expatriation. Many writers share characteristics that unite them as Puerto Ricans, whereas others veer outside them. The authors are professionals or faculty or students studying engineering, sciences, humanities, business, agriculture or English. Their ages range from teens to retired. The majority of the writers are writing in their second language, English – which carries its own implications of the writing of personal history in the language of the colonizer. There are numerous works in Spanish as well. There are no translations.

The subjects of the ancestral stories are mainly everyday people, from cane cutters to factory workers, grandmothers to fisherman, farmers to seamstresses. The themes touch on folk-life, myths, love, loss, identity, otherness, biculturalism, family, traditions, food, music, culture, death, secrets, history, political oppression, migration, immigration, and change among others. The stories are ethnically rich with threads strung to Cuba, Dominican Republic, South America, England, Germany, Italy, France, China, United States, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Australia, etc. proving this tiny island to be the fertile ground for a world Diaspora. Consider it not so much a canonic history as subjective personal history.

Every person who has worked on this project has been either a volunteer or an intern. So far, any resources, materials, services have been either been borrowed or donated. At this time only about a third of the manuscripts, video and audio, and photographs and other artifacts have been edited and installed.

People live within the pasts they construct and, to whatever degree, within the pasts that are constructed for them. The relationship between memory as lived and history as documented is always a complex dialogue — each informing, and disinforming, the other.- Henry Greenspan

We cannot call the recorded stories here oral history in its purest form. Oral history is the preservation of original testimony “as told to” and without interpretation. However, even recorded oral history cannot be free of certain influences such as the setting where the testimony was gathered, the technology used to record and the agenda of the interviewer or organization gathering the history. Memory itself is unreliable for that matter. Something remembered one way – one day – will be remembered differently another. Besides – according to memoirist, Patricia Hampl, it’s not what we remember but why we remembered it that way. Herein lies the story – not in facts but in truth.

What we can call the stories here are “interpreted” or “subjective” personal history. Indeed many of the writers note experiencing the process of recording the interviews as a “setting free” of their subjects’ stories. In this sense – the way spoken word sets free the voice from canonic rules of poetic expression – spoken histories set free personal, family and communal stories from the restrictions of communal and academic expectations.

Writers interested in finding out more about family members or members of the community gathered these interviews by asking questions such as; how did my grandmother fall in love? or what was it like in the war?, among others. The interviews occurred during Black Friday – a counter to the growing impact of American consumerism on Puerto Rico’s families and communities.

Writers received Storycorps guidelines and used whatever recording equipment they could acquire which ranged from pen and paper to cellular phones to actual audio/video equipment. Subjects were interviewed in their native language, Spanish. Some interviews are missing due to equipment failure. Some pen interviews were translated into English by the writers. All the interviews were minimally edited. Writers wrote short reflections on their experience.

Multimodal memoirs combine text, image, technology and story to engage a variety of personal topics. Writers undertake a series of exercises to “visualize” and script their chosen personal story in terms of image frames, sequences and narrative. They use images such as ancestral photographs, original illustrations, cartoons and photography, dioramas, montages, dolls, actors, music, stock footage, images and photography to generate five-minute pieces. The technology includes a variety of free programs on the web.

CENTER STAGE – No hay peor palabra que la que no se dice… (there is no worse word than that which is never spoken)

This is a collection of personal essays, memoir, and literary journalism but primarily autotopographies, a life narrative genre based on family/ancestral photographs. There are a variety of approaches to the genre, from mosaic, to reflection, to “as told to,” poetry, and even reinvented family stories. Much can be called, “subjective personal and communal history.” Each gives snapshot insights into what Puerto Rico was like a few generations ago, during its harsh and tumultuous past, as well as its “now,” in its uncertain post-colonial present. The stories not only illustrate family, tradition, community, language, and identity but also themes of migration, immigration, exile and otherness weave through the tales. The borderlands of Puerto Rico have their own world Diaspora – seeds from many lands, languages, religions, cultures reflecting through. Yet, they all share a commonalty which lends not only an ever expanding view of what it means to be Puerto Rican but also what it means to embrace living this Puerto Rican Life.

The greater part is written in English, the language of the colonizer and a second language to the majority of writers.

There are fourteen chapters representing about a fourth of the material yet to be edited. Each contains a range of stories loosely related to the theme. Click to enlarge any of these amazing images, many rescued and preserved from the ravages of hurricanes, termites, vermin, mold and humidity, reminding us that indeed, nature is always in control on this tiny island.

STAGE LEFT– Galeria de Los Sauces – Poetry is as old as breath itself. For when human beings across the planet simultaneously uttered that first initial sound, they gave rise to the same echo heard in the wail of every newborn child…its meaning is quite literal. ‘I am here now!’ – Luis Reyes

Personal story and poetry join the “echo” of independent writers, poets, artists, photographers, filmmakers, and musicians…

The goal of this stage is to highlight the variety of quality art that is being generated by independent artists both on and off the island.

Enjoy this performance and leave your voice behind in the form of a comment – where there is a story to be told, a place to tell it is required along with someone to listen – call and response – as old as humankind itself….